FOX News “Democrat” Kirsten Powers Calls NIE On Iran “Unbelievable”

Kirsten Powers once again spent more time burnishing her conservative street cred than she did advocating for Democrats on last night’s (12/4/07) Hannity & Colmes. Powers has no apparent credentials in national security or defense but she nonetheless declared that the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran was unbelievable. She also dismissed Alan Colmes’ question about whether or not Bush had misled the American public with his warmongering stance against Iran while 16 intelligence agencies had deemed the country not a threat. She also found time to denigrate Hillary Clinton as polarizing and scripted. With video

In a double segment about the presidential campaign, there was no discussion about Giuliani’s shag fund and barely a mention about Huckabee’s surge. Instead, it was mostly anti-Hillary. Powers made some good points defending Clinton but she was hardly a muscular advocate for Clinton or even Democrats.

In Part Two of the discussion (video below), Colmes started off by bringing up President Bush’s questionable comments about the NIE on Iran earlier that day. Colmes noted that Bush’s story about only becoming aware of the NIE last week was dubious. “We’re going to believe the president was told one thing in August, didn’t get the actual information until last week and in the interim has been promoting a hard line military policy with Iran?” (Note: According to investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, Bush told Israeli PM Olmert about the NIE two days before allegedly being briefed on the NIE.)

Another guest, Frank Luntz, answered first, by blaming liberals. Luntz said it takes time to collect this information, that “you don’t want to make a mistake” and that Bush was being extra careful because “People like you, Alan, criticized him because he rushed to judgment on some issues. Well now you’re not giving him the time to make the right determination.”

Actually, Colmes was not criticizing Bush for taking too much time but for warmongering in a rush and when it wasn’t warranted, just like in the previous “rush to judgment” on that “issue” of Iraq. But Colmes didn’t argue with Luntz. Instead, he turned to Powers and said, “16 US intelligence agencies. When did the president know? What did he know, when did he know it and were we misled once again, like we were with Iraq?”

But Powers was obviously not interested in criticizing the president. “I do think that I’m a little skeptical about this report. The president, I don’t know if he’s being straightforward or not but the reality is, Iran is a threat,” she said.

Colmes responded by saying that whether or not the president was being straightforward with the American people is a serious question.

Not to Powers it isn’t. “There’s a question of when he had the information and when he disclosed it and maybe he was misleading people in terms of the information he had. But I do think to suggest that they’re not trying to pursue a nuclear program is unbelievable to me.”

When it was Sean Hannity’s turn, he played a new ad from Giuliani. Nobody mentioned his problems with the shag fund. Instead, Luntz called the ad “brilliant.” Luntz also added, “He’s the best on terrorism.” Powers didn’t think it worth rebutting that point, even though Giuliani has no real experience either fighting or preventing terrorism and his record in coping with terrorist attacks is less than stellar.

Hannity turned to Powers, calling her, “My friend, Kirsten.” Of course she was. She had just done his bidding for him at the expense of her own Party and, sadly, the country's right to question the president's actions.

Hannity asked her about a poll showing high unfavorable ratings for Hillary Clinton.

Powers smiled prettily at Hannity’s praise, then proceeded to knock Clinton. “She’s been a very polarizing figure for a long time… This is just a challenge for her that she’s gonna have to really convince people that she’s not pandering to them, that she’s talking straight with them. She’s very scripted and I think very prepared and often it comes off as she’s not being straight.”